KARACHI: KARACHI: Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) rejected on Sunday
ruling PPP’s newly promulgated commissionerate system in Sindh,
describing it as government’s autocracy and undemocratic measure.
MQM
says the government decision will be challenged in Senate, National
Assembly, all four provincial assemblies and the courts.
After
a high-level meeting, jointly presided over by President Asif Ali
Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, the Commissionerate
System was restored in Sindh on Saturday by promulgated three
ordinances.
The ordinances repealed the Local Government
Ordinance 2001 and Police Order 2002, enforced by the then president
Pervez Musharraf, and restored Sindh Local Government Ordinance 1979
and Police Act 1861.
As it was expected, the MQM on Sunday
opposed the move announcing that it will challenge the decision and go
to the masses, terming it a conspiracy by rulers to make people of
Sindh their ‘slaves’.
“This is blackmailing by the PPP
government which is going to strengthen the feudal system in the
province by the decision,” said MQM Coordination Committee’s Deputy
Convenor, Dr. Faooq Sattar in a press conference at party headquarters,
Nine Zero.
MQM’s decision, he said, has emerged at an emergent
party’s Coordination Committee meeting held simultaneously in London
and Karachi under chair MQM chief Altaf Hussain, who lives in
self-exile in London.
Sattar said “Our apprehensions are genuine as we think that this is an example of PPP’s autocracy and dictatorship”.
He
was of the view that in democratic societies the local bodies system,
which is now scrapped by the government, helps provide people their
rights on grassroot level, adding that depriving people’s
representatives of their authorities “is violation of democratic
norms”.
“The democracy like that is a worst dictatorship,” he
said, accusing the rulers of snatching people’s rights through such
means.
Sattar said the decision would only strengthen feudalism
and powerful landlords in the province and would protect their
interests, which he termed as conspiracy of the ruling clique to divide
the Sindh province.
The MQM leader said his faction would run a mass mobilization campaign from Monday against the decision.
Sattar
said the coordination committee has decided to submit a petition
against government’s decision in Sindh High Court on Monday.
“It’s a conspiracy to divide Urdu and Sindhi speakers of the province. MQM will challenge it in the parliament,” said Sattar.
Sindh
Government on Sunday restored five divisions including Karachi,
Hyderabad, Sukkur and Larkana, dividing Karachi into five
administrative districts, a decision irked MQM which sees behind it a
possible loss of its vote bank. Online
